The Ohio Democrat. (Logan, O. [Ohio]) 1886-1906, 1887-11-12
TEA DRINKING IN JAPAN.
Occasions of Elaborate Ceremony Among
, the Higher Glasses.

Occasions of Elaborate Ceremony Among
the Higher Glasses.
Some letters recently received from
Japan from an American traveller who
Is having exceptional advantages for
becoming acquainted with the native
life of the country. give some very curi-
GUS and interesting items about tea
drinking there. He says "tea-drinking
is the great feature ofJapan. 1t is not
only national taste, it is social insti-
tuition. On the railroads tea is offered
first-class passengers ut stations as
water Is provided for them with us. In
travelling by private conveyance tho
little roadside inns for accommodation
of travellers are called--and are-tea-
houses; tea IS about all they have to
offer. When you 20 into the shops they
bring you tea; it is part of the general
courteousness and courtliness of their
way Of doing even in petty trading.
But all this is merely incidental, quite
aside from the real business of tea
| drinking. The tea you get in such
ways is. of course, generally inferior.
but the great difference when you come
to the regular tea-drinking is in moro
than the quality Of the tea. Every
house among the well-to-do CLASSES has
as an attachment tea house-not
| merely room devoted to the beverage,
| but little detached house, and in these
tea-houses the social life of Japan is
carried on. 1t corresponds in way to
our club life. Circles of friends meet
in them Omen only habitually, and
those that are especially devoted to these
festivities, or who frequent important
and influential tea-drinking circles, are
called tea men, just as we talk about
club men. The detachment of the tea
house from the rest of the house is q
necessary measure of privacy in a coun-
try where partitions are merely screens,
and privacy in the tea-house was impera-
tive at the time previous to the last
revolution, when the tea-houses were
the centers of political debate and
conspiracies. There are still many tea
houses where politics are the chief
theme, and there are others where art
and literature are the main interests to
the guests.
"The whole matter of tea-drinking
on these occasions is full of elaborate
ceremony. Servants are dispensed
with, it being part of an entirely theo-
retical assumption of simplicity that the
host shall do every thing with his own
hands. The real origin of the custom
is probably in that desire for privacy
before referred to. Unless Japanese
servants are more tractable than ours
it would be good deal easier to do it
all oneself than to teach them, for the
utmost punctiliousness is observed in
every detail. The water is heated over
charcoal, and there are definite ways of
arranging it. I've seen q book giving
forty different ways of doing that. Tho
kettle is put on with ceremony, after q
definite model. The tea-house is always
ornamented with some work of art, a
picture or piece of writing (or writ
ing is an art hcre) or potted plant,
and as this is changed ut each writing it
is part of the civilities devolving upon
the guests to go up to this and admire
it. Potted plants are q great thing
here. All sorts of things are dwarfed
and grown in pots, and the shaping of
them is a sort of national fancy work.
You know you often see in pictures on
fans and screens queer-shaped plants
. and pots. Well, all that business of
forcing and growing them in particular
ways is one of the burning artistic
!, questions in Japan. Little girls are
taught it, ladies practice it, and there
are rival schools and cliques in the art
and great artists eminent for success in
it, and lots of books about it.
"a feature of these entertainments
is, naturally enough, conversation
, about celebrated tea-drinkers of the
I past, poets, artists, and statesmen, and
, often the very cups that they have used
, figure in the festivities of generations
. hundreds of years later. This is felt
, to be delightful touch of sentimcn,
when it can be accomplished. They
pour water under the boiling point or
! their tea, and it has not the bitter taste
! ours has. They drink it without sugar
, or are supposed to do so. but they cheat,
for they hand sweetmeats around with
, it, and the tea is drank through them,
as it were; but of course great deal Of
it is drank without any saccharine
accompaniment The choice tea is al
together different thing from any VIZ
know about. 1t is made from very
I young, carefully-chosen tea-leaves, anC
, is only partially cured, and then in {
powdered form is made into some
B thing more like cruel than any thing
. else as to form. 1t is very delicate ant
, seems to bring one very near to th'
plant in its first estate. Chicag,
I Times.